Tonal study of an eye

I managed to sneak into my studio for a bit today…I finished a face drawing + tonal study. Inspired by one of my favorite illustrators Rebecca Dautremer, who works primarily with gouache, I had decided to give that paint a go and make a good sketch especially for the purpose. I love watercolor and thought I”d never work with anything else. But last week, the oils…wow, that was something! Oils are so gentil…so smooth…and they just don’t dry. When the phone rings in the middle of painting, you can even go and pick it up. Once back, you can pick up where you left off without getting ugly lines of dried paint. And the colours! Oh! Simply beautiful! But there’s one catch: it just won’t dry in a reasonable time. That is, a time that I find reasonable.

I love working quickly…I even use a hair dryer to blow my layers of paint in order to hurry on. Being a full-time mom AND working hard to be an artist simply has its limitations: TIME, TIME and TIME.

So, then Rebecca’s words from in interview snuck back into my head: gouache, gouache, gouache! Well, I have a ton of little pots of gouache here. Bought them once, a little over-enthusiastic…you know, in the days where I was sort of a supply junky. But as it happened with ecoline, I found out I was too lazy to keep opening these little pots every time. Okay, I’ll open 3 at a time, but not all 30. And a painting usually takes way more colours than 3, so I soon felt I spent more time screwing lids on and off and searching the lids that had fallen (what they always do! And always manage to find that one spot where you cannot, I repeat:canNOT see them!). Óh, and let’s not forget about the ungentle workability! Stains and smears instead of nice and smooth color shifts! Soon I decided gouache was not for me.

But then Rebecca Happened. I discovered her work while I was on holiday in France three years ago. And I fell in love with it instamment! Her illustrations are out of this world! Full of imagination, beautiful atmospheres and exquisite drawings…oh, and let me not forget to mention her beautiful painting techniques. But what a minute! Looking at her paintings I couldn’t at once make out what paint she’d used. In an interview on the internet I learned Rebecca paints with gouache. And ever since, I’ve been meaning to give it another go. If something THAT beautiful was possible with gouache, I had probably not worked it hard enough!

So, with some beautiful sketches on my table, I will probably work it tomorrow! But first on the sketches, not on the drawing, because that one turned out so much better than I’d intended. I’m really afraid that I’ll ruin it now…

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